Save the date, friends: Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015. The Wissahickon is coming to the Schuylkill. Just like real life!

Celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, the Fairmount Water Works‘ mission has long served to protect Philadelphia’s water supply and watersheds—and to foster an informed stewardship of the lands surrounding it. So with great honor and pride, I am happy to announce the exhibition of One Man’s Trash, my yearlong project which, in so many words, served to protect the Wissahickon watershed and foster a better stewardship of the park surrounding it. To merge these ideas, we’re hosting a two month exhibition, April 22–June 26, with an opening party on Earth Day.

This project has been a labor of love. In late 2013, I relocated to Mt Airy for a lot of reasons, none greater than the access to the Wissahickon Valley Park. Though its dramatic scenery could easily be mistaken for some Appalachian hinterland, the Wissahickon’s 1,800 acres are indeed right here in the fifth largest city in the country. And with that comes the inherent big city problem that has always bothered me most about Philadelphia: litter.

So. For all of 2014, I took a trash grabber with me on weekly hikes to pick up all of the litter I could carry. Each hike lasted roughly 2-3 hours and went roughly 4-5 miles, and each one traveled a different section of the park than the previous week’s. This enabled me to learn every corner of the park and its 50 miles of trails. It also allowed me to study how the park interacts with its neighbors—neighborhoods, private residences, institutions. For example, while Mt Airy is spoiled with an abundance of access (there are three trailheads within six blocks of my home), East Falls is all but completely cut off from the park, despite sharing close to two miles of border with it.

Thanks for the neat pile, anyway: remnants of a Natty Ice party along Rex Run.

As the project has had many components, so too will the exhibition. All of the litter I’ve removed from the park has been sorted, catalogued, and arranged neatly for display. Aluminum cans, glass bottles, hard plastic bottles, soft plastic bottles, plastic wrappers, plastic bags, SO MUCH PLASTIC, styrofoam, cardboard boxes, paper receipts, discarded clothes, miscellaneous items… it’ll all be here.

The data tallied from all of those items will be here too. Visitors to this site over the past year have probably noticed the project’s 52 weekly reports. All of these reports have been collected in one place and laboriously added up. From this data, the extremely talented Jason Killinger and Mark Adams will design infographics that speak to the city’s consumption—of disposable products and of water—and how its waste is handled.

And, since Devil’s Pool is the Wissahickon at its very best and its very worst—it’s at once a spectacular specimen of Wissahickon schist geology punctuated by a stone aqueduct dating to the City Beautiful 1890s and a party spot whose litter seems to get worse by the year—an entire wall of the show will focus its attention here. Germantown native and resident Sarah Kaufman has photographed Devil’s Pool in use over the past few years; prints from this series will highlight this wall.

With help from Friends of the Wissahickon, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, and the Philadelphia Water Department, we’re also planning a series of events that will include talks at the Water Works, tours of municipal facilities, park cleanups, and guided hikes. All told, we’re going to cover some ground, and we’re gonna have a good time doing it. A full menu will be published when it’s ready, but for now, circle Earth Day on your calendar, and come out for the opening night of One Man’s Trash… and Friends!

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
– Party spot below Livezey and above Fingerspan under big rock outcrop still filthy.
– Dog shit pile DIRECTLY on step of “nail” side of Fingerspan, middle of the trail. Terrible.
– HOLY CRAP, this is the last trash hike!
– Joined by the esteemed Dave Bower, Philadelphia Parks & Rec volunteer coordinator who has been absolutely instrumental in the carrying out of this project.

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
– The deck of Henry Avenue bridge needs its own clean up. Couldn’t Phila U do this?
– Area just below Lovers Leap is filthy from people throwing trash down.
– Lots of twisted junky old creek plastic in Golf Course Run.
– The bank of Walnut Lane approaching the bridge is filthy from people
throwing stuff out their windows.
– Could use cleanup day under and alongside Walnut Lane Bridge (Roxborough side).
– Walnut Lane golf course’s fourth fairway and hole run parallel to Magdalena Trail/Yellow Trail.
– Party spot on sharp ridge above Kitchens Lane curve, has bed sheet, needs cleanup.
– Phone died while taking a panorama of the completely empty Doggy Beach.
– With no people or dogs at Doggy Beach, water along sharp bend of Creek was completely still, Kitchens Lane Bridge reflecting in it like a mirror.
– Nice sunny day, 12 big horses and 1 Lil Sebastian hanging outside at Monastery Stables.
– Cold but lovely sunny day for the winter solstice.
– Heavy vibes hanging over the country after the cop killings in NYC after the non-indictment of the cop for Eric Garner’s death.
– Unused kiosk just above Climbers Rock along interceptor sewer aqueduct would make for a nice art installation.
– Mini parking area atto Climbers Rock needs a cleanup.

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
– The area from Ridge Avenue to the switchback just above the SEPTA bridge is a filthy mess, above switchback on trail much less so.
– What is enormous apartment complex at schoolhouse and Gypsy called? And what is with the razor wire???
– Lots of oyster shells on side of trail.
– Lots of party trash on bank closest to apartment complex, broken glass, pieces of slate roof, etc.
– Area under Henry Avenue bridge is predictably filthy.
– Access to Phila U, like Chestnut Hill College, is terrible. Their campus meets the Wissahickon with a parking lot, and the really nice landscaping they did as stormwater management on campus runs under a superstructure via a small culvert. Derp.
– It would be really easy to have a trail follow the Textile Run from East Falls Trail up to the campus.
– Didn’t see a single person or dog on trail.
– Hike truncated on account of heavy rain and goddamn flu.

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
– Sound of sleet pellets hitting leaves deep in the woods is lovely.
– After nearly an entire year without doing so, I stepped in my first TWO shit piles – the second one by trying to scrape the first one off. (Facepalm.)
– Giant plastic “happy birthday” picnic tablecloth with 2 shitty diapers and 2 very full dog shit bags on Orange Trail just below Bells Mill Road. What is wrong with people?
– Wissahickon Creek bank below Bells Mill parking lot (Orange Trail side) is filthy, needs cleanup.
– Found Christmas light along bank for Christmas season.
– Top of steps we built above Forbidden Drive on trail building day could use another step or
two – it’s a little slippery when muddy.
– That said, the new Andorra Trail is excellent. Bonus stone wall at first switchback.
– Wissahickon Environmental Center needs to print updated map for the trailheads at Bells Mill Road and Northwestern Avenue.
– Area under Germantown Avenue bridge needs a small cleanup.
– Well house at Chestnut Hill College surrounded by swamp, slate roof in bad shape.
– Looked but couldn’t find dated cornerstone. (It’s a round building, haha.)
– Dog shit bag directly next to Dewees Rock for fanciful goodbye.